How TV Faked The Story Of Whitney Houston's Death

As a TV-viewing world, we’re all aware that a lot of things happening on the idiot box that are purported to be real are, in fact, just a bunch of malarkey. The channel Reelz, which isn’t exactly known for its journalistic integrity, airs a series called Autopsy: The Last Hours of…, which focuses on non-natural deaths of celebrities and features “experts” and other people involved with the celebs. One episode involved the death of Whitney Houston, but allegedly the person the show said was Whitney’s drug dealer was only an actor manufacturing a story at the behest of producers. Is nothing real in the world?!? Not even this suspicious looking drug dealer?!?

This might not come as a surprise to anyone, as the world of reality TV has had more than a few of its secrets revealed over the years. But still, this guy was presented as the person who gave her the drugs that assumedly led to her death. There’s a certain amount of “non-bullshit” that needs to be involved with such a thing, but Adam Carolla and his Adam Carolla Show podcast squad talked to the actor himself, named Brian, who alleges that his entire involvement was a sham that he improvised the details for. And he claims this isn’t even the first time he’s done it. Here’s part of Brian’s resume, when he’s not acting in porn videos.

That’s right, in the very same episode, Brian also did a phone interview as the pop singer’s limo driver. Brian described to Carolla his part in the “documentary,” including the manner in which he supposedly got the drugs to Houston, which involved an elaborate autograph ruse. Here’s how he responded when asked who came up with that story.

I did. Me and this other guy Al. We thought of it. We thought it up. I was like, ‘How would I get cocaine to a really famous person? I’d probably do it like this.’ It was like a movie!”

It almost was a movie, really. These kinds of series are often exploitative, but knowing that there’s something of a cottage industry for fake drug dealers is rather disconcerting. To make matters even seedier, Brian alleges the production company that hired him didn't let Brian's interviewers in on the fact that they were talking to an actor.

Brian's interviewers may not have been clued in by their bosses, but Brian claims he was given pretty specific acting advice like "be heartless," and urged to behave in a way that made him seem like a complete asshole. Brian apparently behaved that way towards everyone, since he wasn't even sure which interviewers were in on it or not.

Brian says that even though he came up with a lot of the fake facts used in the "documentary" he didn't get a writing credit, and didn't get paid for the job, which there's probably a union for.

Check out more of what Carolla and Brian talked about in the podcast here. The first chunk is mostly devoted to that Reelz episode, but it’s around the seven-minute mark when they actually get into the falsities.

And now take a peek at the Reelz preview for the "not for Reelz" episode below.

Here’s hoping Lifetime’s upcoming Whitney Houston biopic is a little more up front about when it’s trying to swindle our belief systems.